Splice Now

I spoke at a very interesting meeting of the LA Final Cut Pro User Group last night, along with Walter Murch and Shane Ross. Walter talked about moving back to MC after years with FCP and described in fascinating detail the relative merits of each application. Shane went over Avid Media Access, which makes it possible to work with file-based media without conversion, and offered an impressive demo of Avid’s Mix and Match capability, putting all kinds of material into a single timeline and playing it without a hiccup. I gave a brief introduction to Transition Preservation, Advanced Keyframes and Trim Mode, and I tried to convey my sense that Avid is a renewed company that is innovating aggressively. In other words, there was plenty of substance to chew on.

For me, the main takeaway was that the world is becoming a lot more balanced. A couple of years ago the Final Cut community was unanimous in its disdain for all things Avid. Last night was far more open. There was a powerful sense that both applications are worthy of consideration, that they have different strengths and weaknesses, and that newbies would be well advised to know both.

This can only be good for us as editors. Our internecine rivalries can be fun, but we should always remember that regardless of the tools we use, our shared goal is to create beautiful and compelling cinema, to shape space and time, to move audiences. We may prefer one tool or another, but the big win is that we have a choice. These applications aren’t finished — there’s plenty more to do. And as the manufacturers leapfrog each other, we editors can only benefit. I hope to see more events like last night, where content is king and bias is minimized. I learned a great deal, and I hope those of you who were present did, too. Please share your comments. I’m eager to know what you thought.

My special thanks go to Mike Horton, the heart and soul of LAFCPUG, for hosting this meeting. The group is a terrific resource and a critical part of the Los Angeles editing community. Video will be uploaded soon at this page on the Open Television Network and I’ll link to it when it’s available.